


Feels Like A Promise

by IMKelly (iCarly1969)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Awkwardness, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 09:24:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8484049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iCarly1969/pseuds/IMKelly
Summary: In which Harry and Draco meet in the toilet and share a brief conversation about life after.Maybe nothing had been fixed, but this, this felt like a start to something new.Maybe they could really go somewhere with this.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inspired_being](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inspired_being/gifts).



> This was written for hd_owlfest 2016 and is a gift for inspired_being.

**Feels Like A Promise**

 

Harry adjusted his tie again. 

It felt like it was strangling him - of course, that was just his nervousness talking - but it still felt extra stifling.

Maybe it was the fact that he was graduating, now, and there was a whole life ahead of him, but he hadn’t felt this… small. Not even facing Voldemort and Death Eaters down had made him feel this way. He had a job secured, so that was not a worry, but this was the end of Hogwarts. This was the end of him being a student.

And it was probably the last time he’d be in the same space as Malfoy.

Alright, who was he kidding, Malfoy had graduated from Malfoy to Draco almost half a year ago.

See, Malfoy must have decided that since his name was already ruined beyond salvation, he wasn’t going to bother trying to salvage it, because he simply sleazed his way through this year. As in, in the previous years, he was a bully and a jerk, but this year? His cronies were all gone; he was the only Slytherin who came back for 8th Year, yet he simply held his head up high and went about his life. Despite the fact that many, especially the lower years, targeted him especially since he was one of the only symbols of Voldemort's reign who was still walking their halls. Oh, they gave anyone who was a Slytherin a hard time, but Harry did notice that Draco was particularly picked upon, even by the teachers.

At first, Harry wasn’t interested - he thought that Draco would simply get what he deserved, but then he watched (he hadn’t really broken out of that habit apparently) as Draco simply deflects whatever they throw at him or toss at him with a casual ease that spoke of a worrying experience, never retaliating and, over time, something changed. Draco was consistent throughout the year, really, simply glancing at everyone as if he was disinterested in them before he went on his own way and disappeared somewhere. But Harry? Harry got curious.

Draco didn’t feel like the same Malfoy he knew.

So he asked around, and he learnt from Seamus that Draco was the only Slytherin in their class who never really participated in the Dark Arts lessons. As it turned out, he was the worst of them all at casting the forbidden curses. He simply left the classroom whenever he could, apparently, only ever doing anything unless he was ordered to. From Luna, he learnt that Draco was the one who snuck them snacks when she was locked up in Malfoy Manor - "He’s the only reason we didn’t starve, wasn’t he? He had a lot of Wrackspurts on him all the time, though…” Luna had trailed off after that, looking a little thoughtful, before she wandered off. Over a letter, Neville let him know that during the detention sessions Draco supervised, the worse all of them had to do was to sit there in silence.

The more Harry learnt and watched, the more he felt like he wanted to know more, and he tried to stop.

He really tried.

The problem was, what he learnt made him fascinated, which, as Ron likes to point out, made him obsessed.

This year, however, Ron hadn’t came back to school with him and Hermione, so it was just the two of them and Hermione was worried about her NEWTS. There wasn't Quidditch for 8th Year, either. With a distinct lack of distractions from schoolwork, he actually found time to do his homework and study for exams, with time to spare for this newly acquired hobby.

Which helped him cultivate… something dangerously close to respect and admiration for Draco. Which was so far from what he felt before that it was giving him a whiplash, except that it had always been an obsession, hadn’t it? He hadn't written it all to Ron, what with the amount of drafts he had gone through before he decided to give it up as a lost cause and wrote, instead, about their new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher.

The year was almost over now, Harry hadn’t done anything about what he learnt, and he heard from Caden - a Hufflepuff from fifth year - that Draco was leaving to go to seek his fortune in the States right after he graduates since no one would have anything to do with a Malfoy here anymore. Caden said it with a sort of vindictive pleasure and self-righteousness that Harry felt uncomfortable with, but he wasn’t certain how to correct Caden.

So here he was, on the last night that they would be in the same country.

And he still couldn’t persuade himself to take that few steps, walk out of the toilet, into the Great Hall and over to the end of the Slytherin table and ask Draco… what? 

What, exactly, was he hoping to achieve by talking to Draco?

Friendship?

Closure?

What did he want?

What could he even ask for?

As he stood there, fidgeting with his tie again and trying to sort out his thoughts, someone cleared their throat next to him.

Harry hoped that nothing on his face reflected what he was thinking - half of him was wondering where all his instincts went, because, shouldn’t he have noticed someone standing there? Then he met the eyes of the person who was standing beside him, through the mirror.

Draco looked nervous.

That was a look Harry hadn’t seen on him since Draco had perfected his air of apathy to the point where even Harry’s instincts couldn’t tell if it was genuine or just a mask.

The silence lasted until Draco started with, “Potter, I have to -” He paused there, before saying, in a rush, “Thank you for - ” After he stopped a second time, he went, “Sodding socks, why - ”

He looked at Harry, who was just staring at him. As if he just realised that he had an audience, he visibly composed himself again, staring at Harry for another long moment, before blurting out, “I had a script.” Immediately after that, he made a face and aborted the attempt halfway through, looking horrified with himself before the apathy came back.

Meanwhile, Harry’s brain was stuck. “Sodding socks?” 

Draco’s expression turned sullen. “I’m trying not to cuss.” He glared at Harry after that, which was when Harry realised that he must have not suppressed his smile as well as he thought he had.

“Well,” Harry began, before he paused. What could he say now?

As if sensing his dilemma, Draco tried, “You pick up a lot of cuss words around the heathens Aunt Bella brings around.”

They both paused at that. Then, awkwardly, Draco continued, “You get a strong urge to constantly use them too. It’s becoming a habit.” His expression morphs as he speaks, as if he couldn’t believe what was coming out of his mouth. It settled on mortification the silence just kept dragging, until he said, “Please ignore what I have said, I shall take my leave right now.”

He actually turned to leave. Everything was happening so fast that it felt really... surreal - Harry caught him by the arm then, though he really wasn’t sure what for. He had nothing to say, had he?

But then Draco turned around, looking at the hand on his arm with such an expression that - Harry just burst out laughing. Draco turned that incredulity onto him and Harry laughed even more, because the absurdity of the moment - and the overwhelming sensation of surreality at the sheer number of facial expressions Draco was going through (Harry never realised just how expressive Draco was) struck him then.

His helpless laughter must have been infectious, though, because Draco started with a snort - he snorted, he actually snorted - before starting to laugh with him. Harry was overwhelmed, again, by just how nice Draco’s laugh was. He had never heard Draco laugh this way before, he realised.

They had collapsed onto the floor somewhere in the laughing fit, two grown men in a bathroom sitting on the floor just laughing at absolutely nothing. At one point, Harry gasped out “Your - face - ” before lapsing back into giggles. It was a while before they subsided into the silence.

It was then that Harry realised that he was still holding onto Draco.

It felt nice, he mused, even if they were in the middle of a toilet.

A toilet.

A long stretch of silent contemplation about what this really meant later, Draco said, “I’m going to Romania tomorrow.”

That gave Harry pause, and he was going to say something, but Draco went on. “I was going to thank you for keeping my mother out of Azkaban despite me being a complete… jerk since we first met simply because I was jealous and then apologise for being such an… I had a script for that and I forgot everything but I was going to thank you and apologise to you because I’m leaving tomorrow and I’m not coming back.” He gained momentum towards the end, saying everything in a rush, as if he had to get it out as quickly and possible, and then he looked away.

Eventually, Harry asked, “Why Romania?”

Draco looked at him for a while.

“I have a cousin who lives there,” he said at length. “And Blaise is there at the moment. And I want to be a dragon tamer. I might move to Paris if it doesn’t work out, but…” He trailed off. 

He wasn’t sure where it came from, but he said, “I’m going to be an Auror.”

“I know,” came Draco’s immediate response. “It’s everywhere.”

"No, it's not that, it's..." Harry searched for a way to explain. He started to feel frustrated when he couldn't find words to express what he wanted to say. Surprisingly, Draco continued the sentence for him.

“Too soon?”

"Not... Maybe?"

Something close to a grin appeared on his face. "Not something you’re really sure you want to do right now?"

“I have nothing against it,” Harry protested, though it felt weak and off point.

As if he had a bit of a revelation, Draco said, "You're scared, aren't you?"

Harry said nothing as he considered that. Abruptly, he was made aware of the fact that they were sitting on the bathroom floor, and on an impulse, he asked, "Want to go somewhere else tonight?" As he spoke, he got up. Without thinking, he offered Draco his hand.

Draco looked, once again, caught off guard, but he recovered quicker this time, something inquisitive colouring his gaze when he asked, “Where?” He accepted Harry's hand.

"Well, you're going off tomorrow, so... anywhere?"

Draco echoed, “Anywhere.”

Suddenly, Harry felt a smile coming on. “Feels like a promise, doesn’t it?”

He hadn’t amended anything between them, he knew - hell, he hadn’t even said more than five sentences, but somehow, he felt as if everything was suddenly better.

Maybe nothing had been fixed, but this? This felt like a start to something new.

Maybe they could really go somewhere with this.

**Author's Note:**

> So I tried to do a drabble for this prompt: "Back at Hogwarts for the 10 year reunion, Harry and/or Draco working up the courage to talk to each other about something. Maybe Harry having Draco’s wand, Narcissa telling Voldemort Harry was dead, Sectumsempra curse, fiendfyre rescue, Malfoy Manor non-recognition, etc." but I kind of changed it to the end of 8th Year (it's not epilogue compliant) and the tone went somewhere else, but I hope it's still alright!


End file.
